uhh kinda ashamed to show this :blush: ..but i'm a beginner and this was kinda my second try of lighting without GI?
not any good..i'm actually confused how to start and how to get better?
what can i do to improve my skills in lighting?

jeb

05-17-2010, 12:46 AM

Its not terrible, could use some work but i see mostly you need to plan what look oyu want to get and then see what tools can achieve it or fake it.

i recommend you get a hold of a nice camera (even borrow it for a while if you can) that lets you handle depth of field focus, exposure, film speed, fstop so you can test and learn what happends in a picture and when. photography is a must know tool for someone interesting in creating images. even if you dont want to be photorealistic all the bases about light , shadow, reflecion apply to most cases.

draw some nature, its easy to just grab a pencil and paper and start seeing the world and analyzing it. even if you dont draw much , when you set yourself to finish a drawing you learn a lot.

search for reference always. there is always a picture around that shows something similar to what you try to achieve, so learn from others but dont copy.

as for the actual technology of cg lighting..

its cool that you are trying to learn lighting without gi or final gather. thats a goo move from your part to try to understand why stuff works and how.

dont know if you are using max or maya but doesnt matter. here are some nice tuts for max but the theory applies to all

http://www.cgarchitect.com/resources/default.asp

also this read is a must.

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm

as for personal experience advise.

using normal lights is limiting compared to using physical methods but people have always managed to do it since the beginning of cg. so learn the cheats your app allows. and get yo know your render engine form inside out, its gonna be your friend and enemy at the same time.

post production work makes miracles.. use after effects or photoshop as much as you can

hope you do well, show us your progress

cheers

whateva

05-17-2010, 03:19 PM

thanks alot for taking your time to write this precious advice.. :)

this means alot..

now i actually have a direction...& i'll keep you updated with my work :thumbsup:

adamdaly

05-18-2010, 01:09 PM

learn about linear colour workflow. There is a thread in general discussion about this containing lots information. A search should show it. This will help a lot with how light falls off.

adam

whateva

05-18-2010, 05:21 PM

alright! thanks :)

playmesumch00ns

05-18-2010, 05:30 PM

uhh kinda ashamed to show this :blush: ..but i'm a beginner and this was kinda my second try of lighting without GI?
not any good..i'm actually confused how to start and how to get better?
what can i do to improve my skills in lighting?

Single most important thing you can do is to look around you. Look at what light does in nature, what makes things look the way they do.

Easiest way to do this is to practise and study photography.

whateva

05-18-2010, 06:04 PM

i dont own a professional camera yet...is it ok if i practice photography with 10.1 mega pixel sony cybershot?

sundialsvc4

05-18-2010, 07:13 PM

Certainly you can go a long way with such a camera, although many such cameras try to "compensate" and don't really tell you what they did.

Try this... take a digital photograph of something in your room, with lots of light and shadow, and put the photo on the screen ... then close one eye, look around a bit (twisting your head from side to side) and then, without reopening your eye, look alternately at the scene and at the picture of the scene. Look at the light.

(Turn off the electronic flash on the camera, or hold your finger over it. Try to choose a subject where the camera will not try to use the flash.)

What you need to practice doing is, looking at the light-and-dark, contrast, color rendition, contrast (and so on...) qualities, of the actual light (i.e. "pixels") on the display throughout the entire shot. Not the intended subject.

Go buy and read every one of Ansel Adams' textbooks ... The Print, The Negative, and so on. Study websites and books on formal studio photography. Learn what "f-stops" are and what Ansel's "zone system" means. Learn about the "histogram" tool and how to use it. Learn about "gamma" and "tonal range." Learn about "additive vs. subtractive" color systems.

Now, take your own CG image and critique it. In other words, not to say ... :cry: "this sucks!" :cry: ... (and it doesn't, by the way!!) ... but rather to create a punch-list of the things that you need to alter in this "test print" to cause it to become the "photograph" that you intended to make. The purpose of your critique is to develop a strategy for technically improving the image: a strategy that you can actually carry out. Carry out the changes (on a copy of the original file), "rinse and repeat."

Remember that your eye can "instinctively" detect that "something's not right," but it will not per se tell you what is wrong. One of your goals is to learn how to recognize what your eye already intuitively senses ... and to recognize it in terms of corrective actions. (Only) with practice, this will become second-nature.

Are you gonna learn all this stuff in one sitting? No. Are you gonna feel overwhelmed? Yeah. Are you gonna feel like you're taking a sip from a firehose? Uh huh. :) But you will succeed.

whateva

05-19-2010, 06:44 PM

thank you!!
those were some great tips... and i really have to build my aesthetic sense quite alot..and ya it would take time but i'm willing to work hard so it doesnt matter ^__^

whateva

05-23-2010, 12:36 PM

tried lighting this scene as a noon scene..even though the image used in window is nothing like noon :P